THE LATINA BOOK CLUB

    Ecco/ Harper Collins It was the kind of freedom you felt when someone was looking at you and finally saw what others couldn’t see because it had been bottled away for so long. ---Angel The Latina Book Club congratulates author Joseph Cassara on his brilliant debut, and we are pleased to choose THE HOUSE OF IMPOSSIBLE BEAUTIES as our Book of the Month for Pride Month. Inspired by the documentary Paris is Burning , and because he never found any books with “real” gay Latino characters, Cassara wrote his own story.   Set during the 80s and 90s when disco and AIDS reigned supreme, THE HOUSE OF IMPOSSIBLE BEAUTIES is the story of four Latino gay / transgender youths looking for the freedom to be true to themselves.   Angel, Venus, Juanito and Daniel become a family against all odds. Life is hard for them, but amid the abuse, violence and addiction, they find strength in each other. We love that THE HOUSE OF IMPOSSIBLE BEAUTIES is ab...

NEW! Every Wednesday The Latina Book Club will feature excerpts from exciting novels by Latino authors. Happy reading! LAY YOUR SLEEPING HEAD A Henry Rios Mystery Novel Korima Press December 2016 Thirty years ago, THE LITTLEDEATH introduced Henry Rios, a gay, Latino criminal defense lawyer who became the central figure in a celebrated seven novel series. LAY YOUR SLEEPING HEAD is a brilliant reimagination of that first crime novel by its author Michael Nava. It’s coming out in December, just in time to make a great holiday gift. Hint. Hint. EXCERPT: I stood in the sally port until the steel door lurched back with a clang and then stepped into the jail. A sign ordered prisoners to proceed no further; an emphatic STOP was scrawled beneath the printed message. I looked up at the mirror above the sign where I saw a slender, olive-skinned, dark-haired man in a wrinkled seersucker suit. I adjusted the knot in my tie. A television camera recorded the ge...

REVIEW:  SANTA MUERTE: THE DANIELA STORY BY LUCINA STONE   As we count down to Halloween and Day of the Dead this week,   The Latina Book Club   will bring you some “dark and intriguing” books to stay up late with.    Happy Reading.  And always, Read Latino!    Story Merchant Books La Santa Muerte in Mexican tradition is the beloved goddess of death and a protector of souls residing in the dark underworld. I can see the connection with Lucina Stone’s new novel, SANTA MUERTE: THE DANIELA STORY. Our young heroine learns that she too is a protector, and soon she will learn what she is truly made out of. Suspenseful. Mysterious. Captivating. Engaging. Lucina Stone’s SANTA MUERTE: THE DANIELA STORY is an amazing and imaginative debut and the great start to a new series. Readers will enjoy the magic and the time travel elements, as well as the struggle of our heroine to accept that she is a bruja, and to come to gri...

The Latina Book Club celebrates Gay Pride with a magnificent list of books by Latino Authors. This year, Gay Pride is so much more precious given the recent slayings in Orlando.  So we celebrate with  anthologies, fiction, historicals, graphic novels, young adult novels and memoirs, etc., all in search of the Latino Queer identity.  Happy Reading! GAY PRIDE BOOKS A CUP OF WATER UNDER BY BED by Daisy Hernandez (Beacon Press) – coming of age memoir about a Colombian-Cuban woman. AMERICANO: GROWING UP GAY & LATINO IN THE USA, Poems by Emanuel Xavier (Rebel Satori Press) – poems that challenge sexual, political and religious beliefs. ANGEL PARK by Roberto F. Santiago (Tincture / Lethe Press) – poems that shout their LGBTQ identity. ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE by Benjamin Alire Saenz – two lonely boys share a special friendship. BOYFRIENDS WITH GIRLFRIENDS by Alex Sanchez (Simon & Schuster) –YAs search f...

The Latina Book Club is honored to reprint Rudolfo Anaya’s new poem in memory of the 49 fallen in Orlando.  Our prayers continue to be with the family and friends, and the LGBT Community at large. #LoveIsLoveIsLove “The Pulse of Life” It was the twelfth of June             another hot and humid Florida night. In Orlando young people gathered at the             Pulse Club, enjoying camaraderie, the             dance floor pulsating with life,             dancers moving to syncopated music,             Latin rhythms, good will embraces,             laughter, friendships, plans for ...

  It's Memoir Week here at The Latina Book Club .   Do let us know which memoirs/biographies you would add to our list. Happy Reading. Beacon Press The road before me is English and the next part too awful to ask aloud or even silently: what is so wrong with my parents that I am not to mimic their hands, their needs, not even their words? A CUP OF WATER UNDER MY BED is a coming-of-age memoir told in vignettes and familial anecdotes.   It's a story about family and tradition, about exploring the world and one's sexuality, about living your life your way. SUMMARY:   Daisy Hernández chronicles what the women in her Cuban-Colombian family taught her about love, money, and race. Her mother warns her about envidia and men who seduce you with pastries, while one tía bemoans that her niece is turning out to be “ una india ” instead of an American. Another auntie instructs that when two people are close, they are bound to become like uña y mugre , fingernails ...